Who was Joseph Pulitzer?

By Terrence Crimmins

Pulitzer was a rags to riches story who revolutionized the newspaper industry by introducing sensationalism and shaking the ground of American politics by demanding changes to stop the rich from exploiting the poor. Crimmins' novel brings us into the day to day life of this unique genius, who arrived in America as an immigrant who barely spoke English yet twenty years later developed and edited two of the biggest newspapers in the nation. Pulitzer's run-ins with the other newspaper titans of the Gilded Age show us the men who laid the foundations of American journalism, and his confrontations with the wealthy robber barons brings us into the drama of how Pulitzer began a surge for reform that was so very important to improve the quality of American life. Pulitzer's wife tries desperately to comfort the man whom she deeply loves, yet their romance is shattered by how Pulitzer's workaholic Napoleonic ambitions came to cause him a terrible breakdown, pushing this newspaper widow further to the sidelines in this captivating drama of American life. Crimmins' dramatic novel brings us into fundamental elements at the heart of American society, describing the life of a man who fought essential political battles that changed life as we know it in the United States.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Terrence Crimmins
• Release date: Oct 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9780991378333

Terrence Crimmins

Terrence Crimmins was the youngest of nine in an Irish Catholic family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he rooted for the Pirates and the Steelers. He continued his Catholic education at Boston College, where he also learned to drink beer and play rugby, and received Bachelors and Masters degrees. Crimmins has done newspaper work, online columns, published in a scholarly journal, optioned a screenplay for a biographical picture, and taught history in Baltimore, Maryland, for a number of years. He writes short stories and is currently engaged in authoring a series of three novels about American historical figures, and now resides in his old hometown of Pittsburgh.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Beginnings

Joseph Pulitzer began his career as a journalist in post-Civil War St. Louis, Missouri, a brawling young city still, like most of America, rife with the tensions that followed the end of hostilities in that bitter conflict over slavery. For anyone who has ever watched a Western movie it’s easy to imagine the scenario, with horse carriages being the main mode of transportation on dirt roads beside occasional wooden sidewalks, and boots were worn as protection from the perpetual appearance of mud. Pistol packing was common, as were duels and fights for manly honor in and outside of the often crowded saloons. Most Americans still lived on farms so city life was in its infancy, compared to the way we know it today, and the people in the city lived much like the people of the country, with guns and knives often at the ready. Blacksmiths were the predominant mechanics of the day and, as we will see, they had a firm hand in the power arrangements of the urban political machine. Politics was also different because the Democratic Party was still the rural, states’ rights, formerly pro-slavery party of Andrew Jackson. The Bourbon Democrats, as they were called, were resentful of the intrusion of the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln’s Party’s attempt, under the Radical Republicans, to bring about racial equality in the South during Reconstruction touched a raw nerve in the gut of the still racist post-war South. Though at the start of our story Pulitzer was a staunch supporter of the Republicans and Abraham Lincoln, he would, eventually, switch to the Democrats, and point that party away from the farmers of rural America toward the immigrants and the cities as a source of political support. In this, as in many other issues, however, Pulitzer was ahead of his time, and the Democratic Party did not really follow his directions effectively until twenty years after his death. At the start of our story, though, Joseph Pulitzer was low on the totem pole of political power in the St. Louis of 1867.

* * * * * * * *

Pulitzer, a cub newspaper reporter, was walking down Main Street of St. Louis, on his way to a meeting of reporters at a saloon. His stroll, it is safe to say, was not pleasant. Other reporters were following him and, as they liked to do, were making fun of him, for he was a fairly recent Jewish looking immigrant with a strong Hungarian accent.

That’s Jewseph Pulitzer, said one.

You mean Joey the Jew, said another.

Naw, he’s Pull It Sir, said yet another, sarcastically pulling at his nose.

Pulitzer forged onward, trying to keep his temper down amidst the cascade of anti-Semitic insults. He was six feet four inches tall and very skinny, with thick glasses perched at the end of a long nose. He would not be a formidable adversary in a fist fight.

Hey Joey, your mother says it’s time for bed.

His English isn’t very good.

It’s time to go back to Germany, Joseph.

Joseph, mounting the steps to the dining room of the establishment, returned fire.

I’m from Hungary, you idiot!

He says he’s hungry.

Mommy must not have given him dinner.

Pulitzer stomped into the restaurant, wishing these buffoons would go away, but of course, they would not. His fellow reporters were, at that point, a proverbial lodestone around his neck. On top of that, a lively crowd of manly men were imbibing whiskey in the bar room adjoining the restaurant, and there another enemy awaited him. It was Edward Augustine, who clutched a copy of a newspaper containing an article Pulitzer had written exposing him as a corrupt judge. Augustine, actually, was more of a contractor than a judge, but had a very convenient position as a judge on the County Court to award himself contracts. He was perturbed, to say the least, that Pulitzer had pointed this out. As a contractor, he was a strong and burly man, and he discarded his drink to confront the beanpole Pulitzer, and stormed toward him.

Let’s see if you have the kind of guts in public that you do at the paper, Pulitzer, he fumed.

You are both a liar and a crook, Mr. Augustine, and by the time I’m done with you you’re going to wish you’d never come to St. Louis.

Before Pulitzer could add on to this sally Augustine seized him by the lapels and hurled him into the wall, and the thin Hungarian collapsed on the floor before rising to his knees to look up at the bully, who now had his fists up in the boxing pose. Pulitzer, realizing he had no chance in such an encounter, decided to flee, and stumbled to his feet before scurrying out of the door that he had come in, and hustled away down the street.

You’re not going to dare write about me like that again, you little pipsqueak! Augustine blared after him.

Pulitzer rushed toward the rooming house where he was living seething with passions of revenge. On the way, he had a telling remark to make to a reporter on his way into the meeting.

Stick around and you’ll have a real story to write about, he said, without waiting for a response.

Pulitzer galloped up the stairs to his bedroom and burst into his room, searching his meager possessions for a pistol he owned. He made sure that it was loaded, and retraced the route from whence he’d come. When he reentered the restaurant Augustine again turned to confront him.

Back for more, you little sissy?! he cried out, storming forward.

But Pulitzer raised and cocked his pistol, in a rather clumsy fashion, allowing the men who surrounded Augustine to close in upon the attacker, and push his shooting arm downward, so the shot only grazed Augustine’s leg, who fell to the floor in a not a very pleasant mood.

You goddamn little bastard, you coward, you sneaky little dog. This ain’t gonna be the end of this, I’ll tell you that!

As the manly men took their hero away Pulitzer was disarmed by others, and then taken aside by his suddenly silent reporter acquaintances, two of whom escorted him to the Police Station.

* * * * * * * *

The next day Pulitzer sat in shame at his newspaper, the Westliche Post, facing the music in a meeting with his bosses.

It’s so damn unfair, Mr. Schurz! These people are government sponsored crooks.

Yes, Joseph, I couldn’t agree with you more. But our job at the newspaper is to stay above the fray, not get down in the gutter and fight with them, Schurz replied.

Schurz was a German immigrant who had escaped from jail after the Revolution there in 1848, and came to America to become a farmer. But then the Civil War intervened, and Schurz did more than his duty for the Union Army, rising to the rank of General. He was also a well-educated man and decided, after the war, to put his learning to use in the newspaper business.

Don’t I have the right to defend myself? Pulitzer cried out.

You defend yourself with the newspaper, Joseph, not a gun.

The real weapon Joseph, is that little notebook that you carry around, interjected his other boss, Thomas Davidson.

Davidson was not actually a newspaper man but a professor of philosophy, another immigrant from Germany. But he had grown tired of academia and wanted to do something closer to ordinary people. He was a very kind man, and saw that Pulitzer was very intelligent, but also a young man of strong feelings. He would come to be a mentor for the struggling young immigrant, who would grow, in time, to be Davidson’s employer.

* * * * * * * *

Joseph sat grimly at a pre-trial hearing in the Municipal Court of St. Louis shaking in his boots, as they say, afraid that Mr. Augustine would succeed in putting him in jail. Of course he had to plead self-defense, and who would not believe it, Pulitzer thought, if they’d seen the way that bully had thrown him against the wall like a sack of flour. There were other aspects of the story that were the reasons for his shaking—reasons Pulitzer himself did not enjoy thinking about that would lead toward attempted murder. In Pulitzer’s heart, however, this man was a public villain of the worst order so his own actions, faulted though they were, were in the public interest. Such being the case a little liberty with the facts was not unwarranted, with the added benefit of keeping him from going to jail.

The courtroom was divided in half by those parties who were sympathetic to the two sides. The halves were only regarding physical space, however, as the much larger half of spectators sat behind Augustine, with many of the belligerent manly men who had been with him in the saloon on that night. Their side reveled in a clear expectation of the imminent revenge of justice upon this upstart pipsqueak that they so despised. Pulitzer’s section was much smaller, unfortunately for him, consisting of Schurz, Davidson, and only three of the clique of reporters who were there on the night of the alleged attack, evidencing the fact that Augustine’s proponents were not the only people who had written off the future of Joseph Pulitzer. The two sides did, however, comprise the two sides in the battle for control of St. Louis: the Bourbon Democrats and their powerful political machine versus a new and lowly group of newspaper reporters. The odds-makers in Vegas, it might be presumed, would not have given the reporters much of a chance.

Augustine approached the bench to present his case in a state of slightly restrained anger, with his right pants leg rolled up to show the bandage from the shooting. In this court of law with the blind maiden of justice, thought Augustine, surely he would prevail, so he had confidence this little whippersnapper would be off to prison, for some time, and surely, with a criminal record, never return to being a reporter. Being a newspaper reporter was a tasteless job for sissies and weasels, and such panty-waists that were in charge there would never offer someone a job who had a criminal record.

And so, Your Honor, the fraudulent judge said to the presiding Judge, finishing up his case, only the actions of my friends in restraining him saved my life.

When his turn came Joseph Pulitzer meekly approached the bench with feelings of greatest alarm, for the deck seemed stacked against him. He attempted to amplify his case for self-defense by casting himself as the victim of a most ruthless bully.

Mr. Augustine has mentioned some of the facts, Your Honor, but he left out how he verbally threatened me because of some reporting I had done about him, the judge gave a knowing nod, and then picked me up and threw me against the wall. I rose, your honor, and when I looked at Mr. Augustine, he raised his hand up in the air and he was holding something gold, your honor, which I thought looked like a gun.

That’s bullshit, Your Honor!

The judge banged the gavel.

"Mr. Augustine, as you should be well aware, he paused, with a cool glare at the corrupt judge, this is a court of law, requiring decorum. If you use profanity again I will hold you in contempt. In addition, sir, you were allowed to present your case without interruption, so please allow Mr. Pulitzer to do the same. Please proceed Mr. Pulitzer."

The insides of Joseph Pulitzer suddenly felt a spark. Could it be that the worm had turned? He felt a sudden rise in his standing before the court.

And so, Your Honor, I thought that what he was holding might be a gun, so that I had to act in self-defense.

Pulitzer sat down. His adversary glared at him, and the judge had to bang the gavel to quiet the grumblings of protest amongst the grossly offended Augustine supporters. Pulitzer stared ahead timidly, as the judge ruminated the case, surmising the size differential between the two opponents.

The Court rules that the Defendant acted in self-defense, ruled the judge. There will be no trial. Mr. Pulitzer must pay the court costs, however, of one hundred dollars.

The Judge then brought down his gavel with a resounding whack, and abruptly rose to leave the courtroom.

All rise, intoned the Bailiff.

There was no doctor present to measure the rise in blood pressure of Mr. Augustine, but it was precipitous. This was evidenced by the much redder color on his face, his apoplectic rise to his feet, and slightly restrained stamping and glaring at the departing judge. Joseph Pulitzer grinned gleefully with immense relief as he firmly shook the hands of Carl Schurz and Thomas Davidson. He clearly understood their non-verbal language however because his bosses’ facial expressions clearly said you’ve gotten away with something and are not blameless, Cub Reporter.

Who can say whether the decision by the Judge was somewhat political because he believed, like Pulitzer, that Augustine was a public crook who should be removed from his position as a Judge? Whatever the reason for the decision, however, one thing is clear. Had he decided the other way, in all probability, the journalistic career of Joseph Pulitzer would have come to an abrupt end.

Joseph and his partisans left the courtroom somewhat quietly, under the self-righteous glare of their opponents on the Augustine side, trying to keep their chins up despite some of the foul and indiscrete insults being cast in their direction. Without the Judge there to restrain them anymore the manly men felt free to broadcast their opinions, and the Bailiff did nothing to intervene. The battle lines were clearly drawn.

* * * * * * * *

Many readers must be curious about how Joseph Pulitzer got into this position, so let’s do a little background. Americans love a rags to riches story, and Pulitzer’s is that, or almost that. His is a riches-to-rags-to-riches story, for he came from a wealthy family in Hungary to the Unites States where he experienced poverty before pulling himself up by his own bootstraps to become wealthy again.

Pulitzer grew up in a town called Mako, a suburb of Budapest, Hungary, where his father was a successful Jewish businessman. But his father died young, and Pulitzer’s mother had difficulty maintaining the business she had inherited as a widow, and remarried to rescue her family from the threat of poverty. This marriage did not please the young Joseph Pulitzer, however, who hated his new stepfather, and who was so angry about it he blew up in the receiving line at his mother’s remarriage ceremony.

I cannot stand it, the young firebrand exclaimed to his Uncle Henri.

Don’t be silly, Joseph, your new father is a very nice man, and now he’s your stepfather. You’ll grow to like him.

I hate him.

Come now Joseph, you’re young, and I’m sure you miss your Father, but what would he want, eh? Would he want you to be like this?

Are you crazy?! He would not want Mother to remarry! It is dishonorable for her to remarry as a widow.

I didn’t mean it that way, Joseph, I mean–

I won’t stand for it, I’m telling you, and I’m leaving.

You’re leaving? Don’t be silly, Joseph. You can’t leave now.

Oh yes I can.

You can’t possibly leave now, Joseph, for goodness sakes, where on earth are you going to go?

I am leaving this instant and I am going to join the army.

Joseph left the receiving line and strutted down a side hallway of the castle-like building. His brother Albert, four years his junior at thirteen, snitched on his older brother.

Mommy, look! Joseph says that he is leaving to join the army!

Their mother gazed pessimistically at the departing adolescent.

Shall I go get him? inquired Uncle Henri.

Let him go, the stoic mother replied.

* * * * * * * *

Pulitzer faced several disadvantages in his attempt to join the army, however, most being physical. He looked a bit odd in the recruiting office in Vienna, where his emaciated, stork-like figure, large nose and thick eyeglasses put him in an unenviable position.

You’re too thin, the officer harangued, not strong enough, and couldn’t see the broad side of a barn without those glasses.

But I could do it, I tell you, the young tyro protested.

Forget it, we won’t take you. Next!

An angry Joseph Pulitzer stormed away.

He would not take no for an answer, however, and sought to join the French Army, but encountered similar difficulties in the Paris recruiting office.

He’s so thin he’d be hard to shoot, the officer said to his fellow recruiter.

Maybe he could be a coat rack.

I think he’d be better as a scarecrow.

He might scare a small sparrow.

Are you going to take me or not!? the determined young man demanded.

Take you? You must be kidding.

Next!

Pulitzer stormed out of another recruiting office.

He crossed the English Channel hoping a better fate awaited him there, but it proved a disappointment, though an officer at least afforded counseling.

Look mate, not everyone is meant to be a soldier.

But I could do it! the bug-eyed Pulitzer postulated.

Go back home, there’s other careers for ya.

I can do it, I tell you.

There’s other things you’d be perfectly good at...

Pulitzer did not want to waste his time listening to an extrapolation of this theory, and once again, he stomped out the door.

In frustration, he went to Frankfort, Germany, and, on a chance, ended up in a recruiting office of the Union Army, who were searching desperately for soldiers to fight in the American Civil War. Pulitzer was unaware that they would take just about any living breathing male on the planet to get the bounty that the government paid for recruits crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

Of course we’ll take you, an officer informed him.

You will? Pulitzer inquired, dumbfounded.

Indeed we will, a second officer told him. We need soldiers to fight to restore the Union.

Can you ride a horse? the first officer inquired.

I am an expert horse rider! exclaimed Pulitzer energetically. I can canter, gallop, jump fences—

Fine, fine, we’ll put you in the Cavalry. Welcome to the Union Army.

Pulitzer stood to salute proudly.

Next!

He was greeted with cursory salutes, and shunted off again.

* * * * * * * *

On the crowded ship across the Atlantic, Pulitzer learned new things about the United States. From a German emigrant he discovered that the bounty money they were supposed to get was going to be pilfered by other selfish individuals. One of the Planet Earth’s oldest traditions, government corruption, was clearly in play.

I am not going to stand for it! Pulitzer exclaimed, beginning a style of rebellion that would be his own lifelong tradition.

Standing